Last Christmas, indeed, Biddy was not so gay as usual. Our pretty housemaid had for two or three years made it a regular request that Biddy should put _her own_ wedding ring in the kitchen pudding--I do not know why, for Jessie never had the luck to find it in her division. But so it was. A merry night is Christmas eve in our cheerful English homes--The cook puffed out with additional importance, weighing her ingredients according to rule, for "a one-pound or two-pound pudding;" surveying her larded turkey, and pronouncing upon the relative merits of the sirloin which is to be "roast for the parlour," and "the ribs" that are destined for the kitchen; although she has a great deal to do, like all English cooks she is in a most sweet temper, because there is a great deal to eat; and she exults over the "dozens" of mince pies, the soup, the savoury fish, the huge bundles of celery, and the rotund barrel of oysters, in a manner that must be seen to be understood. The housemaid is equally busy in _her_ department. The groom smuggles in the mistletoe, which the old butler slyly suspends from one of the bacon hooks in the ceiling, and then kisses the cook beneath. The green-grocer's boy gets well rated for not bringing "red berries on all the holly." The evening is wound up with potations, "pottle deep," of ale and hot elderberry wine, and a loud cheer echoes through the house when the clock strikes twelve. Poor must the family be, who have not a few pounds of meat, a few loaves of bread, and a few shillings, to distribute amongst some old pensioners on Christmas eve. In our small household, Biddy has been a positive necessary for many Christmas days, and as many Christmas eves. She was never told to come--it was an understood thing. Biddy rang the gate bell every twenty-fourth of December, at six o'clock, and even the English cook returned her national salutation of "God save all here," with cordiality. Jessie, as I have said, is her great ally; I am sure she has found her at least a score of husbands, _in the tea cups_, in as many months. The morning of last Christmas eve, however, Biddy came not. Six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, and the maids were not up. "How did they know the hour?--Biddy never rang." The house was in a state of commotion. The cook declaring, bit by bit, "that she knew how it would _hend_!--it was _halways_ the way with them _Hirish_. Oh, dirty, ungrateful!--very pretty! Who _was_ to _eat_ the copper, or boil the _am_, or see after the _sallery_, or butter the tins, or _old_ the pudding cloth?"--while Jessie whimpered, "_or drop the ring in the kitchen pudding_!"